It is not a question of vaccines or science, but of credibility of the institutions: the Minister of Health First appointment, then revokes two experts, denying himself and reopening the shadow of the “Italietta” without pride.
The problem is not vax or no vax. The problem is not the vaccines. The problem is not even so much the science which should be a place of comparison and not of censorship, of dialogue and not of bonfires, even if this is in fact not a little question. The problem is not the academic titles of the excluded, the names of the signatories that contested them, mainstream thought against divergent thinking.
The problem is not even the rather surreal fact that a scientific commission composed of twenty -two people are afraid of the opinions (which they are) of two people. Or rather, all of these are problems that it is right to discuss, but which disappear in the face of a bigger question still. A question that does not only concern science, Covid and brawls between experts. It concerns the dignity of a country and its institutions.
The contested appointment
The story is quite known. On August 5 the Minister of Health Orazio Schillaci appoints twenty -two members of the Consultative Commission on vaccines (Nitag). Among these are two scholars who don’t like people you like.
One is the surgeon Paolo Bellavite73 years old, specialized in hematology, with Master in England, very rich curriculum, thirty years as a professor at the State University of Verona, over 300 publications and an H-Index that has done it for a long time among the top ten Italian scientists.
The other is Eugenio Serravalle69 years old, Tuscan pediatrician, author of books and specialized in preventive pediatrics, childish and neonatal pathology. Their fault? During the pandemic, during the pandemic, opinions on Covid vaccines not exactly in line with the deification of them.
In short, heretics of the Pfizer religion.
The revolt of vaccinists
So much was enough to trigger the fatal wrath of the vaccine priests. Everyone lined up: the order of the doctors, the virostar Bassetti-Bassotti-Boriosi-Burionithe most aligned bureaucrats, the hygiene company and the Nobel Giorgio Parisipromoter of a collection of signatures to obtain the dismissal of the two reprobes.
As always, singular to see scientists who, in the name of science, ask for the stake for those who diverse. A dynamic that recalls the inquisition more than an academic debate.
The reverse of the minister
But the point is not so much. Is that the Minister Schillaciin front of the protests, he made back: first he asked for the resignation of the two, then, not having obtained them, he has the entire committee is dissolveddenying himself within a few days.
The doubt is inevitable: when he signed the appointment decree, did he know what he did? If he didn’t know, it’s an irresponsible. If he knew it and bends to the first protest, it is a rabbit.
Can a country with one devastated healthcare afford such a minister?
The bad figure of Italy
In any case, the worst figure remains that ofItaly. This center -right majority often recalls respect for institutions and national pride. Yet, with this story, it re -emerges the image of theItalietta Volsegabbanafearful and without dignity, the one that found its most dramatic demonstration in 8 September.
An an empire that was thought to be stored, and that instead resurfaces today with the stretches of Badoglio of Health.
